How many speakers should I have and where should they be located?

Although there are numerous standards, the most common speaker configurations are based on formats from Dolby & DTS. Speaker positions play a vital role in your listening experience, less can be more in this scenario. Dolby and DTS have recommended speaker positions for all their formats, using their guidelines we are able to calculate the correct speaker quantity & placement using the main listening position as our reference point.

It is better to have less speakers in the correct positions, rather than overloading the room with numerous speakers in the wrong locations. Room shape/size, budget and seating positions all play a equally important part in the design process.

Let’s start with viewing distance. As you move closer to the screen, it fills more of your field of view. If you sit too far away, you can be easily distracted by things around the screen, and you probably can’t perceive all the detail in the image. If you sit too close, you’ll need to turn your head back and forth to see everything on the screen. The amount of your field of view occupied by a screen is called the viewing angle.

How much of your field of view should the screen fill? According to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the viewing angle should be at least 30 degrees. According to THX, the ideal viewing angle is 40 degrees, the minimum recommended angle is 36 degrees, and the minimum acceptable angle is 26 degrees. These viewing angles translate into recommended viewing distances for screens of a given size and shape—the larger the viewing angle, the shorter the viewing distance.

Why are acoustic treatments essential?

Acoustics is all about minimizing reflections. Sound covers a broad spectrum of frequencies from the lowest bass rumbles to the highest sparkling high hat, the all-important human voice falls somewhere in the middle.

In a Home Cinema we are aiming for an RT60 time of between 0.3-0.6 seconds, what is RT60?

RT60 defines the amount of time it takes an impulse sound at a given frequency to decay by 60 dB. By targeting the three R’s (Resonance, Reverberation & Reflections) with different kinds of absorption and reflection treatments we can improve this time. What we’re really trying to do is eliminate the chance of sound bouncing off walls and windows and reflecting back at us, competing with other sounds.

When these treatments are used you get a more enriched experience with crisper more accurate sound, you can truly lose yourself in.

Something that is often overlooked but is an essential design consideration is the aspect ratio of your screen. An aspect ratio describes the width and height of a screen or image, it consists of two numbers separated by a colon. The first number denoting the image’s width and the second its height. For example, an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 means the image's width is 1.33 times the size of its height. The two most common aspect ratios being 2.35:1 (Cinemascope) and 1.78:1 (16:9), although Directors use a variety of ratios between these.

It is important for us to understand what content will be viewed, so that we can recommend the correct shaped screen for your space, will your main use be watching movies or TV? If you love both we have you covered with a masking screen option. Masking systems are used to partially mask or hide the cinema screen creating a sharp definition around the projected image at different aspect ratios, this is a luxury solution giving you the best of both worlds.

Creating the right ambiance in a cinema room can be difficult when most of our interior design choices are focused on maximizing the light in each of our living spaces. To allow us to truly immerse ourselves in that cinematic experience we have to put in place extensive countermeasures such as blackout shading, lighting control, dark colours, and reflective surface reduction, this all helps to combat unwanted light pollution.

Is there anything more luxurious than relaxing and reclining in your own custom-made cinema seating? Our seating options boast an extensive range of styles and fabric choices to complement any design.

We can even integrate them into your Control4 system, recalling your favourite pre-set or folding away in a click of a button.